The Color Project

Bernice Aurora Wescott has one thing she doesn’t want anyone to know: her name. That is, until Bee meets Levi, the local golden boy who runs a charity organisation called The Color Project.

Levi is not at all shy about attempting to guess Bee’s real name; his persistence is one of the many reasons why Bee falls for him. But while Levi is everything she never knew she needed, giving up her name would feel like a stamp on forever. And that terrifies her.

When unexpected news of an illness in the family drains Bee’s summer of everything bright, she is pushed to the breaking point. Losing herself in The Color Project—a world of weddings, funerals, cancer patients, and hopeful families that the charity funds—is no longer enough. Bee must hold up the weight of her family, but to do that, she needs Levi. She’ll have to give up her name and let him in completely or lose the best thing that’s ever happened to her.

For fans of Stephanie Perkins and Morgan Matson, The Color Project is a story about the three great loves of life—family, friendship, and romance—and the bonds that withstand tragedy.

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Thank you to Sierra Abrams for providing me with an eARC of The Color Project and Mollie the Reader for hosting the blog tour.

This has in no way influenced my review, all thoughts are my own.

The Color Project is a wonderful, heartwarming novel that captures the essence of interpersonal relationships – family, friendships and romantic. Up there with Queens of Geek, The Color Project is now one of my all-time favourite contemporary novels.

The Color Project features beautiful writing and a gorgeous design. However, the characters were by far the highlight of my reading experience.

First of all, the design of The Color Project is absolutely gorgeous. The cover, the chapter titles, the page breaks… beautiful. It’s definitely one of the prettiest books I’ve ever encountered and it really reflects the book well.

Sierra’s writing is beautiful, which is especially impressive considering this is her debut novel. Bee’s narrative voice is vivid and relatable, made unique through the inclusion of brackets to demonstrate her thought process (i.e. if Bee says one thing the brackets are used to reflect she’s really thinking something else) and “Thing You Should Know About Me [insert random number here]” randomly scattered throughout the text. The language, which is very contemporary with familiar colloquialisms, coupled with the incorporation of instant messaging conversations and references to current media such as The Book Thief and Hamilton, further allows the reader to be immersed in Bee’s narration.

Another unique formatting element is the fact that the chapter names are song titles. Personally, the only music I really listen to is Hamilton and Disney so I glossed over this part but for those who are interested, Sierra has compiled a Spotify playlist for all of the chapter title songs which can be found here. This element links in well with the story itself as Levi and Bee have several conversations regarding their taste in music.

Bee, our narrator, is a relatable, realistic character who is struggling with her own insecurities, identity and the pressure of not knowing what she wants to do with her life. She is also a bookworm (and book pusher) which I always love seeing. As challenges arose I didn’t always agree with how she dealt with them but I did understand where she was coming from when making her decisions.

Sadly, it’s incredibly rare to find present, positive family relationships within young adult literature as most novels either feature dead, absent or terrible parents – it’s almost as trite as the line “I let out a breath I hadn’t realised I was holding”. That said, Bee’s family were active and realistic; they teased and sometimes irritated one another but at the end of the day they were always there for each other. Individually Bee’s parents, Chloe and Matt, are wonderful people and great role models. Together, they have an amazing relationship that is actual goals. They are open and honest with each other and it’s apparent to all that they’re still madly in love. Bee’s siblings, Tom, Astrid and Millie, all have distinct personalities and were very much 3D characters.

Levi is an adorable cinnamon roll, a “precious heart”, and I love him so much. Not only is he incredibly kind, sweet, generous and selfless, but at the mere age of nineteen he runs his own charity – The Color Project – which administers financial aid to anyone who asks for it. His mother, Suzie, is equally amazing and I just want to hug them both and protect them from the world. Suffice to say, Levi is currently my top book boyfriend, even over Rhys from A Court of Mist and Fury and Jamie from Queens of Geek.

The Color Project is full of wonderful, kind, generous human beings. Gretchen, Bee’s best friend who lives across the county; Tracy, Bee’s manager at the flower shop; Ludwig, the delivery man; and all the volunteers at The Color Project are just a few of them.

Thus, in spite of the slightly darker themes that appear later in the narrative and a handful of terrible, selfish people, The Color Project leaves an overall light, fluffy, optimistic impression. It shows readers that yes, the world can be harsh, but it can be beautiful too.

The Color Project takes a relatively unique approach to relationships. Personally, I’ve found that young adult novels – particularly contemporaries – tend to build up to the moment the couple gets together and then stop. There usually isn’t anything past that; no models for navigating relationships, nothing on how to appropriately deal with conflict once the “honeymoon period” has gone by. The Color Project effectively navigates these waters; the relationship is developed, Bee and Levi start dating (and believe me, it’s adorable) but because of outside factors and some communication errors, there is hardship. To me, this is an incredibly important inclusion because that’s often how life is.

In terms of romantic relationships, I really appreciated that a) Bee wanted to wait until marriage to have sex and b) that her wishes were accepted, with no shame or judgement attached. I am a fan of sex-positive books and I believe they’re important but this element especially stood out to me as it’s something that I value.

Cute, fluffy and heartwarming while also making me ball my eyes out, The Color Project is a new favourite of mine. I loved it wholeheartedly and upon it’s release I will most certainly be shouting at people to read it.

The Color Project is now being released on August 17th as opposed to July 18th. Sierra addressed this in a Twitter thread which you can find here.

Sierra herself is super lovely and approachable. Her website can be found here and her Twitter here.

Let’s Discuss!

Have you heard of The Color Project?

If you’ve read The Color Project, what are your thoughts? If not, have I convinced you to read it upon release?

What are some of your favourite contemporaries?

What are some of your favourite novels featuring strong family relationships?

I hadn’t heard of The Color Project, but I swear I’ve seen the cover somewhere… I have no idea where though, and now I’m confused 😄.
I don’t read a lot of contemporaries, but my favourite is probably The Indigo Notebook series by Laura Resau.

Good review! I’m glad you liked this one. It’s totally true that a lot of YA books don’t deal with relationship hardship, and it’s not fair to just write about the pretty parts of a relationship, cause you light make some people feel like theirs is not working out if it’s not perfect. So I’m glad this book addresses that!

Thank you! 🙂 Definitely, it makes though it all the more awesome me when a book does. It’s definitely important for relationships to be represented realistically, especially when it’s for a teenage audience.